Archive for the ‘Mario Andretti’ tag

A.J. Foyt at the Motor Trend 500 in 1969. All images courtesy Ford Motorsports History.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the paths of racing greats A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti crossed for the first time, but it was the 1967 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans that first saw the men go head to head on an international stage. Now, after decades of competition in motorsports, the two legends are once again rivals, this time competing for a nomination to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Mario Andretti after winning the 1969 Indianapolis 500.

The Medal of Freedom was implemented by President Harry S. Truman in 1945 to recognize civilians for significant contributions to the war effort. In 1963, the award was changed to the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President John F. Kennedy, who also elevated its status to the highest decoration achievable by a civilian. Where the Medal of Freedom was originally given by a Cabinet secretary, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded only by the President of the United States himself, adding to the award’s prestige. Previous winners in the sports category have included Ted Williams, Muhammad Ali, Ernie Banks and Hank Aaron, but the only racing-related recipient to date has been Richard Petty, who won it in 1992.

A.J. Foyt (foreground) and Dan Gurney wave to the crowds after winning the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans.

A.J. Foyt started the Indianapolis 500 for 35 consecutive years (from 1958 to 1992), winning the race four times and earning the distinction of the only driver to achieve victory in both front-engine and rear-engine cars. His skill set was not limited to open wheel racing, however, as Foyt stood atop the podium in seven NASCAR Cup races and piloted a Ford GT40 to victory (with co-driver Dan Gurney) at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. More remarkable, perhaps, was the fact that the 1967 race was Foyt’s first and only appearance at the storied endurance event. He captured back-to-back victories in the International Race of Champions (1976 and 1977), and remains the only driver in history to win the Indy 500, the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Mario Andretti at the 1967 Yankee 300.

After his retirement from the Indy Car cockpit in 1993, Foyt continued his career as a team owner. He’s been named to the National Midget Racing Hall of Fame (1988), the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (1990), the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame (1990), and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame (2000); as if those honors weren’t sufficient, in 1998 Foyt also made the list of NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers. Earlier this month, Greg Bailey of St. Louis, Missouri, started a petition to enter Foyt’s name in the running for the 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom, in honor of his “unequaled record of winning in all forms of auto racing.”

Foyt makes a pit stop during the 1967 Indianapolis 500.

Mario Andretti was born in Italy in 1940, but emigrated to the United States in 1955. Equally versatile behind the wheel of an Indy Car, a sports car, an F1 car or a NASCAR Cup racer, Andretti is the only driver to win the Indy 500, the Daytona 500 and the F1 World Championship. Ignore his F1 title, and Andretti and Foyt are the only men to capture victory at both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500.

Andretti racing the Holman-Moody Ford GT40 Mk II at Le Mans, 1966.

In 1990, Andretti was named to the Motorsport Hall of Fame of America, followed by the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame (in 1996) and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame (in 2001). Named “Driver of the Century” by the Associated Press and Racer Magazine in 2000, Andretti was presented with the Commendatore Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic) in 2006 for his contributions to motorsport. As with the American Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Italian award had only previously been presented to one recipient associated with motorsport – Enzo Ferrari.

Jim Knipe of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, also started his petition to consider Andretti for the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this month, citing Andretti’s relentless pursuit of “The American Dream,” along with his numerous accomplishments in racing, and as a global ambassador to the sport, as the reasons why the racing great should be considered.

As of this writing, the A.J. Foyt petition has received 1,843 of the 100,000 signatures needed by March 10 for consideration, while the Mario Andretti petition has garnered just 494 signatures of the 100,000 needed by March 12. Even a completed petition won’t guarantee that either driver is in the running for the award, merely that their names are raised for consideration.

[Author Geoff Gehman’s recently released book, The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons, which describes Long Island in the 1960s and 1970s and which we’ve previously excerpted, also includes a chapter on the famous Bridgehampton Race Circuit, which he thought would be of interest to us, so he gave us permission to excerpt it here. For more on the book, visit SUNYPress.edu.]

I’m standing on the Chevron pedestrian bridge at the Bridgehampton Race Circuit, watching heaven duel hell. It’s the 1967 Chevron Grand Prix Can-Am, and some of the world’s fastest drivers are challenging one of the world’s nastiest tracks. Dan Gurney, Jim Hall and 28 others squeezed into fiberglass spaceships with big wheels and giant fenders are whipping through wicked turns shielded by dunes, jackhammering around a bumpy hairpin, pushing gravity to the metal. Over 110 minutes and 200 miles they turn the course into an obstacle course of sand, stones, smoke, flames, oil and an unhinged door.

I’m unhinged by the thundering noise, zigzagging cars, flashing metallic colors, burning fuel, sizzling heat and blindingly bright light. Even the peaceful horizon, with steeples in Sag Harbor and sailboats on Peconic Bay, is strangely dizzying. The bridge is shaking, but only because I am.

Down in the crowd is a famous actor who knows my queasiness. Paul Newman, a champion racing fan, is in the pits because he’s sponsoring Mario Andretti’s electric-violet Honker Ford. Watching the crazy ballet of figure eights and fishtails reminds him of his harrowing ride the day before in a pace car driven by Andretti, his first spin with a professional driver as well as his first spin around the Bridgehampton track. The roller coaster in a Shelby Cobra Mustang jarred Newman’s vital organs and left him believing that Custer’s Last Stand must have been a kiddie ride.

A stock-car driver named David Pearson made a grand declaration about the Bridge before he began practicing there for the 1966 NASCAR grand championship. “This here is the end of the earth,” he said, “and that ain’t no shit.” Well, he was almost right. You see, for a car-crazy kid like me, the Bridge was the end of the earth and the shit.

***

My parents swore my third word was “car,” which, because I couldn’t cough out a “c,” came out as “gar.” No one knows why. Maybe I inherited my paternal grandfather’s lust for roadsters, an acceptable sin for a mighty Mennonite minister. Maybe I was conceived in the sporty Pontiac my father sold before I was born for a more sensible sedan.

Whatever the reason, by age five I was an auto addict. Using pound notes sent by my English grandmother for birthdays and holidays, I bought metal scale models of the coolest cars made by the coolest companies: Corgi, Matchbox, Dinky. Most of my purchases were curvy and quirky. I owned a Ferrari Berlinetta 250 Le Mans because of a boss rear engine, a Lotus Elan S2 because of a funky ad on the trunk: “Put a Tiger in Your Tank.”

Like most kid collectors, I was mesmerized by moving parts. I spent hours opening the rear-facing doors of a black Rolls-Royce Phantom V, flipping the red bucket seats of a gold Camaro SS. I spent days operating the gadgets on the James Bond Aston-Martin D.B. 5, which I snapped up after seeing the real deal in the movie Goldfinger. I felt like a spy-in-training ejecting a fingernail-sized villain from the passenger seat, pressing the exhaust pipes to pop a bullet shield.

My love for toy cars came from nowhere. My love for real cars came from the South Fork. Even as an elementary schooler I realized that sexy automobiles became sexier on those flat roads along those sweeping fields washed by that lush light. I had my first vehicular orgasm when a candy-apple-red 1965 Mustang convertible cruised Lamb Avenue in Quogue, where we were renting a house, blasting Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” More thrill rides followed: a Karmann Ghia gunning the back roads between Sagaponack and Bridgehampton; an MGB GT dragging the desert-like strip between Amagansett and Napeague; a hemi-powered Barracuda sailing over the slaloming Old Montauk Highway.

***

I had no idea that some of these roads were racetracks before I was born. From 1949 to 1953 a host of speed demons—many ex-soldiers, some retired fighter pilots—pushed Jaguars, Porsches and other new European roadsters over 130 mph over four-plus miles of pavement in Bridgehampton and Sagaponack. Bold-faced drivers ranged from Dave Garroway, the first host of the “Today” show, to Briggs Cunningham, a legend for his high finishes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in hybrid cars (i.e., “LeMonstre,” a Cadillac coupe with an aerodynamic aluminum body developed by aircraft engineers) and skippering the winning yacht in the 1958 America’s Cup. Races were supervised by a consortium of East End speed moguls. Financial pole sitters included Henry Austin “Austie” Clark Jr., whose Long Island Automotive Museum featured such early hot rods as a 1907 Thomas Flyer, and Bruce Stevenson, an energy investment manager and Royal Air Force alumnus who jump-started street racing on the South Fork after a three-decade hibernation.

The Bridgehampton Road Race was scenic and magnetic, annually attracting upwards of 180 drivers and 40,000 spectators. It was also dangerous, with snow fences and hay bales masquerading as safety barriers. In 1953 local governors canceled the popular street competition after three spectators were hit by a car dodging a pedestrian chasing a runaway hat. The same year Clark, Stevenson and service-station owner B.J. “Mummy” Corrigan decided to fill the racing void by building a safer, bolder, out-of-town track. They spent the next three years buying nearly 600 acres of Bridgehampton land chartered in 1685 by King James II. The byzantine operation involved the purchase of hundreds of lots—most used for fishing, hunting and foraging, many with long-lost owners.

The leaders of the fledgling Bridgehampton Road Races Corporation had earthy, lofty plans. They sold stocks for $5 apiece from a card table by the Candy Kitchen, a Bridgehampton luncheonette, ice-cream parlor and social center. They commissioned two Grumman Aircraft engineers to design the track. It ended up being largely developed by the man who bulldozed its roads, contours and hazards: Ercole Colasante, an Italian racecar driver and team manager. He was inspired by a jigsaw puzzle of glacial debris and three daring European courses, particularly a Dutch track snaking through trees and dunes.

The Bridge opened in 1957 with races for cars, motorcycles, bicycles and even runners. Shaped like an abstract whale, the course had the bite of a Great White shark. The 2.85 miles of asphalt pavement featured bumpy and sandy patches, four elevation changes totaling 130 feet and eight turns. The first turn, the Millstone, was famously hair- and hell-raising—a true millstone. After hitting up to 170 mph on a 3,100-foot straightaway, drivers had to prepare for three right-hand bends–all quick, all downhill, all blind, all scary. Only a yellow light and a flagman warned racers of breakdowns, crashes and other looming catastrophes.

“You didn’t dare miss that first bend,” says Mario Andretti. “You had to be very precise. If you didn’t know where you were going, you could get lost. You’d end up in Long Island Sound—or Coney Island.”

Indeed, the Bridge was a Hamptons version of Coney Island. Drivers registered in a Water Mill restaurant owned by Dick Ridgely, who drummed in a band led by Paul Whiteman, the renowned jazz impresario. Beautiful bun-haired women in sleeveless sheet dresses listened to jazz and sipped cocktails under a tent by the Circuit Club, an exclusive paddock with a picket fence, picnic tables and an antique bar salvaged by Austie Clark, who loved to tend his bar. They hobnobbed with celebrities attracted by first-rate drivers attacking a track with a top-notch reputation as a bitch goddess. Among the A-listers were Vincent Sardi, restaurateur and amateur racer; James Garner, amateur racer, racecar owner and star of the television series “Maverick” and the racing film Grand Prix, and Walter Cronkite, the nation’s anchorman.

Some races were prefaced by laps from vintage sports cars. Clark showcased his 1914 Duesenberg-Mason, which was identical to an Indy 500 vehicle driven by Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I flying hero. Sometimes Clark was joined by his friend Charles Addams, the gloriously ghoulish cartoonist, Westhampton Beach resident and owner of a 1926 Bugatti T 35 C Grand Prix, manganese blue and very, very sweet. In 1959 Addams raced at the Bridge in a rare 1923 Mercedes built for the Indy 500, the same machine he raced in 1952 on streets in Bridgehampton and Sagaponack.

Spectators at the Bridge read programs with an Addams cover illustration. They sat in stands imported from the Polo Grounds, the demolished home of the New York Giants and New York Mets; camped in infield tents, and moved from site to site in tractor-drawn hay carts. One of the best spots for these “mountain goats” was Arents Corner, which had a lovely view of Peconic Bay and was nearly, thrillingly over the track. Its namesake was George Arents III, who in 1957 tested the unopened course by demolishing a new Ferrari—which he could afford to buy, repair and replace as an American Tobacco Company heir.

***

I liked cars more for their looks than their guts; lyrical lines meant more to me than horses under the hood. Likewise, I liked drivers at the Bridge less for their success than their story. I really didn’t care that Peter Revson failed to finish three races in 1967-1969, that he was victimized by suspension and gearbox problems. What appealed to me was his snappy combination of intelligence and recklessness, Ivy League hipness and movie-star charisma. His sideburns were the best in the business; I wanted to grow a pair like them like I wanted to wear a Nehru jacket. If I had his handsomeness, I figured, I could date the gorgeous girls who flocked and flirted around him. Of course I ignored the fact that Revson, to quote Sports Illustrated writer Robert F. Jones, looked “like a $10,000 bill must feel.”

To me, Revson seemed exotic because he won grand prixes in Europe. He polished his pedigree by finishing second in the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring with teammate Steve McQueen, who was more of a speed junkie than fellow actors Garner or Newman. Revson grew up privileged, the child of a co-founder of Revlon, the cosmetics giant. Yet he paid his bills and his dues. He kept racing even after his brother Doug, a driving colleague, died in a 1967 crash. His zest for life was inscribed on a pillbox he received from a female fan: “Everything Is Sweetened By Risk.”

I liked Mario Andretti because he lived in Nazareth, Pa., near my father’s hometown. He was also a bona fide underdog, a species my dad taught me to appreciate. His car career was pure bootstrap. At age five he and his twin brother, Aldo, raced hand-made wooden cars over the hills of their Italian village. In Nazareth, where the brothers Andretti settled at 15, he competed on oval dirt tracks in a rebuilt 1948 Hudson Hornet Sportsman. By 1964 he had conquered every racing class from midget to sprint.

There was something endearing about Andretti’s checkered career at the Bridge. It was here, in 1965, that he drove his first sports car, a Ferrari 275P, for the North American Racing Team run by Luigi Chinetti, a fabled ex-driver, mechanic and early Ferrari advocate in the U.S. Andretti was at a disadvantage even before he turned on the ignition. “I had never seen the course, so the blind hairpins were doubly blind,” he says from his office in Nazareth, a half hour from my home. “Before the first practice, I didn’t even know if the first turn was right or left.”

That weekend Andretti wrestled the Bridge to a draw. He was in third place when his Ferrari was retired prematurely by a bad clutch. While the Chinetti team was satisfied with him, he wasn’t satisfied with himself. “That day I was not quick enough,” he says, “to rub wheels with the big boys.” The breakdown was especially disappointing during a breakthrough year when he was named the Indy 500’s top rookie and became the youngest United States Auto Club series champion.

In 1967 Andretti returned to the Bridge for the Chevron Grand Prix Can-Am. His car, a Holman-Moody Honker-II Ford 427, was famously unreliable, or “slippery.” Despite a respectable eighth-place finish, he insists it’s the worst vehicle he ever raced. The race wasn’t a total loss; after all, he met Paul Newman for the first time. In fact, he learned the actor was on his team when he saw “Paul Newman” on the Honker’s nose. “I think I’ll paint my name on it,” joked Andretti over the public-address system after a practice, “and let Paul drive it.”

That weekend Newman wanted no part of driving the Bridge. He learned his lesson while riding with Andretti in a pace car from hell. When the reconnaissance run was over, Newman ejected himself from “the infernal machine,” belly flopped in the pit, “kissed the ground, thanked my Maker, and vowed never to kick my dog.”

Despite the unfriendly introduction, Newman quickly befriended the Bridge. Andretti believes the demanding course compelled Newman to become a more devoted racing actor, owner and driver. In 1969 he starred in the film Winning, playing an obsessed driver who fights a rival for the affections of his long-suffering wife, played by Newman’s real-life spouse, Joanne Woodward, who entertained herself at the Bridge by chatting with spectators, some of whom petted her dogs. In 1983 Newman and Carl Haas, an Andretti rival on the Can-Am circuit, formed an Indy team with Andretti as driver. In the ’80s Newman regularly raced at the Bridge, becoming a respected competitor. In the ’80s and ’90s he endorsed a campaign to prevent the course from becoming a condominium complex and golf course.

***

My main man at the Bridge was Mark Donohue, a main competitor of Andretti and Revson and a driver with Newman-like creativity and intensity. I began following him during that 1967 Can-Am, which he won in a blue, bodacious Lola T70 Mk.3B Chevy. The next year he won the Trans-Am in a Camaro Z/28, a souped-up version of one of my favorite sports cars. My admiration grew as I listened to gear heads in the stands celebrate him as that rare driver who could engineer and customize his cars. I was particularly fascinated by the story of Donohue and Roger Penske, his team owner, lightening and quickening the Camaro by dipping its frame in paint-stripping acid. What sounded like vehicular voodoo was what Donohue called “the unfair advantage.”

Donohue and the Bridge were true comrades. In 1964 he won his first significant race there, a 500-mile marathon. He drove an MGB owned by his mentor, Walter Hansgen, one of the track’s best and best-loved drivers. In 1967-1970 Donohue was the course’s most successful competitor, winning four races, two more than the runner-up. During the 1968 Vanderbilt Cup he broke the Bridge speed record, finishing a lap in 91.33 seconds in a McLaren M6A Camaro. By then he had mastered the course’s demands of agility and aggression, especially under rainy conditions. He had also conquered a turn named for Hansgen, who died from injuries suffered during a 1966 practice for Le Mans.

A scientist of speed, Donohue made the Bridge his personal laboratory. It was there he tested the Camaro Z/28 on ice at sunset; it was there, after winning the 1967 Can-Am by default, that he decided to shape up. One of the first drivers to embrace situps and healthy foods, he radically improved his alertness, endurance and success. In 1967 he won six of the eight races he entered for the U.S. Road Racing Championship. In 1968 he won a stunning 10 of 13 Trans-Ams and finished seventh in his first Indy 500, receiving rookie of the year honors. In 1972 he won his first Indy in style, setting a speed record of 162 mph.

The 1969 Trans-Am gilded Donohue’s mythic status at the Bridge. He won the pole position in a Camaro Z/28 with holes poked in doors to cool rear tires and brakes. After killing the motor during a warm-up, he borrowed a Camaro from Penske teammate Ronnie Bucknum and was demoted from the front of the pack to the back for driving an unqualified car. Pissed off by the chief steward’s verdict, even though he knew it was right, Donohue started the race a whopping 500 yards behind the pack—“just to make sure there was no confusion.”

There was no confusion during the race. After the first lap, Donohue advanced from 30th place to 12th. Despite breaking a pushrod and losing a cylinder, he finished second, 109 seconds behind a Mustang Boss 302 driven by George Follmer, a former and future teammate who that season was Donohue’s rough rival, banging fenders and nearly banging heads.

Three years later Donohue accused Follmer of a weird kind of infidelity when the latter tested a Donohue-modified Porsche 917 10K “Turbo Panzer” for the Penske team while Donohue recuperated from an accident. “It just doesn’t feel right,” wrote Donohue in The Unfair Advantage, his memoir-manual. “Seeing another man drive your car, a car you know so well. I imagine it must feel like watching another man in bed with your wife.”

It was this gutsy honesty that made me a Donohue fan. He was funny enough to invent a menu featuring bulls’ balls, philosophical enough to toast a near-fatal accident by hosting a “Crash & Burn” party, colorful enough to turn fans into fanatics. In fact, Al Holbert, a driver who fixed cars for Sam Posey, another Donohue rival, actually learned to imitate Donohue’s handwriting, a rather extreme form of idolatry.

***

It was Donohue who made the Bridge my bridge to nowhere, the only place where I was seduced by speed, strategy and danger. The track inspired me to run my Hot Wheels off their plastic orange track, play pit crew with my Corgi Ferrari Berlinetta and gorge on racing films at the Hamptons Drive-In in Bridgehampton. That’s where I saw Garner in Grand Prix, McQueen in Le Mans and Newman in Winning.

Newman stars in one of my favorite tales of the Bridge. One day the actor was approached during a practice by Carl Jensen, the track’s superintendent and a weekend projectionist at the drive-in. “You know,” Jensen told Newman, “you and I are in the same business.”

“You mean racing?” asked Newman.

“No,” said Jensen, “the movies.”

***

My racing hero, Mark Donohue, became a legend beyond the Bridgehampton Race Circuit. In 1972 he set a speed record while winning the Indianapolis 500. In 1974 he won the first International Race of Champions, a World Series for first-rate drivers, and released The Unfair Advantage, a unique memoir-manual. His advantage ended unfairly during a fatal crash while practicing for the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix. He was preceded to the grave by another Bridgehampton favorite son, Peter Revson, who died while practicing for the 1974 South African Grand Prix.

By then the Bridge was running on fumes. The track was slowly strangled by anti-noise ordinances, poor access roads and lack of money to replace antiquated equipment—including wires hit by lightning after being exposed by eroding sand. In time it became a public course for club, motorcycle and Soap Box Derby racers, and a private course for co-founder Henry Austin Clark Jr. and other vintage-car gear heads. Cartoonist Charles Addams’ third wife, Tee, knew her husband was coming home when she heard the roar of his 1926 Bugatti—a racket caused by a missing tailpipe or exhaust manifold–on the backroads between the Bridge and their house in Water Mill. “When she heard that raw engine screaming through the woods,” says H. Kevin Miserocchi, executive director of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation, “she would fill up the ice bucket and get out the cocktail glasses as though the commuter train were pulling into the station.”

In 1983 a consortium of Bridge devotees saved it from becoming a condo complex. The Friends of Bridgehampton (now the Bridgehampton Racing Heritage Group) then helped new owner Robert Rubin, a Wall Street commodities trader and an owner-racer of classic cars, continue running it as a track until 1997. Rubin, the child of an appliance repairman, eventually transformed the property into an ultra-expensive Scottish-style golf course with a glass-cathedral clubhouse filled with contemporary art and racing memorabilia. The dunes that were hazards for drivers are now hazards for duffers. The Chevron pedestrian bridge remains as a strangely comforting relic, a reminder of the day I fell for fiberglass spaceships flying around blind hairpins.

An Alfa Romeo T33TT/3 practices for the 1972 Targa Florio. Still image from video.

Michael Keyser was a racer before he was a film producer, and perhaps his inside knowledge of the sport is what makes Keyser’s 1972 documentary The Speed Merchants so gripping. Using star drivers like Mario Andretti and Vic Elford as narrators, the film tells the story of the 1972 World Sportscar Championship, a season that saw Ferrari’s utter domination of the sport and Jo Bonnier’s tragic death at Le Mans. On Tuesday, July 8, Keyser will be at the Simeone Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to present a special screening of the film for museum visitors.

Inspired by The Hard Chargers, a 1971 ABC television documentary on stock car racing, The Speed Merchants was Keyser’s first attempt at film making, and its production reportedly cost Keyser more than $1.5 million of his own money. While the 1972 World Sportscar Championship consisted of 11 races, the film concentrates on six events, including Daytona, Sebring, the Targa Florio, Le Mans, the Nürburgring and Watkins Glen, giving viewers a sense for what it was like to compete at these legendary tracks (or on these legendary courses) in the day.

Vic Elford talks about Jo Bonnier’s death in a segement from The Speed Merchants.

Far less graphic than other films about racing (a fact that may have hurt the film’s popularity and marketability), The Speed Merchants still manages to drive home the point that professional racing in 1972 was a very dangerous sport. Those with enough on-track experience will likely cringe at the hazards of racing events like the Targa Florio, which required teams to post orientation and practice laps on public roads, occasionally filled with livestock, slow moving vehicles, and pedestrians. Even dedicated circuits like the Nürburgring and Watkins Glen were hardly safe by modern standards, but driving them at speed was just considered part of the job for professional drivers.

In addition to narration by Andretti (who competed in a Ferrari 312P during the 1972 season) and Elford (who drove an Alfa Romeo T33TT/3), the film features interviews with drivers like Brian Redman, Jacky Ickx and Helmut Marko. While there’s enough period footage to satisfy the most hardcore racing fan, the movie is primarily centered on the human drama behind the sport, and those who consider the early 1970s to be the pinnacle of sports car racing likely won’t be disappointed.

The Speed Merchants will screen at 6:30 p.m. on July 8. Admission is free with a paid entry to the museum, but reservations are required in advance; to book a seat, visit Eventbrite.com or SimeoneMuseum.org.

Mario Andretti on pre-grid at Loudon, New Hamphsire, 1993. Photo by Kurt Ernst.

Speaking of getting Mario Andretti’s autograph… I’ve always been a fan of both Mario Andretti and Indy Car racing, so when an opportunity arose to claim a photo vest for the 1993 CART Indy Car race at Loudon, New Hampshire, I certainly didn’t turn down the offer. As fate would have it, the day netted me one of my favorite racing photos, a framed image that proudly resides in my office to this day.

In 1993, Nigel Mansell was fresh from his 1992 Formula One World Championship, and eager to prove himself behind the wheel of an Indy Car. Heading into the New Hampshire race, Mansell had taken a win on the streets of Surfer’s Paradise, Australia, as well as wins on the oval tracks of Milwaukee and Michigan. If F1 drivers weren’t supposed to win on ovals, Mansell clearly hadn’t gotten the message, and the British driver was the center of attention during the weekend’s events at Loudon, another oval track on the 1993 schedule. Proving that his win on the short oval at Milwaukee was no fluke, Mansell grabbed the pole for the 1993 New England 200, further ensuring that his Newman Haas Lola was mobbed by photographers during pre-grid.

Amazingly, that left the Lola of Mario Andretti unattended by members of the press, so while the crowds were fighting over a shot of Mansell in the cockpit, I calmly knelt at the right front wing of Andretti’s car, snapping frame after frame of the legendary driver. When the film was developed, I knew from the 35-mm negative that I’d captured the exact shot I’d hoped for, one that conveyed the intense concentration a driver experiences in the minutes before taking to the track.

The following year, my employer sponsored an Indy Car team, and I once again had a chance to go behind the scenes at an Indy Car race. When I casually mentioned the shot of Andretti in passing, one of the crew members said, “If you ever want it signed, let me know. We have friends at Newman Haas.” That Monday, the print was in the mail, and it was returned signed to my wife and me at Nazareth, Pennsylvania, in 1994 (Andretti’s last race on his “home” track).

Andretti won just a single race in 1993, at Phoenix, while Mansell captured the championship by an eight-point margin over Emerson Fittipaldi. The following year, Andretti announced he’d be retiring at season-end, and managed a single podium with a third-place finish at Surfer’s Paradise, Australia. Though fans certainly hoped for a better season, it wasn’t as if the former champion had anything left to prove.

Today, the framed image of Andretti in the cockpit is a bit sun-faded, but it’s still a great memento of the driver’s long and glorious career. As long as I have an office wall to hang it from, it will remain on display.

* Among Ferdinand Porsche’s designs for Germany during World War II, the Typ 175, a solid-tire four-wheel-drive tractor built by Skoda.

* Finally, the folks behind the Gran Turismo video game recently released a three-part series talking with Mario Andretti about his first race car, a 1948 Hudson and, meanwhile, building a replica of that car. Part one is above, and the other two parts are on the GT6 site.

Race car drivers in the United States rarely enjoy the same name recognition as other professional athletes. While most Americans know the names Derek Jeter or Tony Romo, there’s far less familiarity with names like Ryan Hunter-Reay or Brad Keselowski. The biggest exception to this rule is a man whose name has become permanently associated with both racing and speed in American culture: Mario Andretti.

Andretti is the last American to win a Formula One race, at Zandvoort, Holland, in 1978, and is also the last American to take the Formula One World Championship (in 1978 as well). He’s the only F1 world champion who’s also seen victory at both the Indianapolis 500 (once, in 1969, despite his 29 starts) and at the Daytona 500, and is one of three drivers (including Dan Gurney and Juan Pablo Montoya) to win in Formula One, IndyCar and NASCAR. Though hardly a complete list of Andretti’s 111 career victories, these milestone accomplishments are even more impressive given Andretti’s tumultuous childhood.

Born in Montona, Italy, in 1940, the first five years of Andretti’s life were marked by the hardships of the Second World War. When hostilities ended, the peninsula on which Montona was located was annexed to Yugoslavia, then under Communist rule. The family remained in Montona until 1948, when the Andrettis fled Yugoslavia for a refugee camp in Udine, Italy, later ending up at a second camp in Lucca, Italy. The family sought to emigrate to the United States, and in 1955 their request was granted; as the story goes, the family of five arrived in New York with no ability to speak English and just $125 among them.

The Andretti family in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, circa 1955, with their 1946 Ford.

The Andrettis settled in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, and both Mario and his twin brother Aldo eventually found work in an uncle’s automotive repair shop. Mario’s goal was to get back to racing, as he’d participated in a Formula Junior series during the family’s time in Lucca. Brother Aldo was just as passionate about motorsports, and by 1959 the two were sharing a 1948 Hudson Hornet Sportsman modified car at local dirt tracks. A serious crash late in 1959 put a temporary end to Aldo’s driving career, but Mario soon earned a reputation for speed; in his first two seasons, he amassed 20 victories in the sportsman stock car class.

The goal for Mario, however, was racing open wheel cars. After some success racing midget cars in 1962 and 1963, Andretti switched to sprint cars in the United States Auto Club (USAC) in 1964. The year also marked his first start in an Indy Car, in Trenton, New Jersey, on April 19, where he fought his way to an 11th place finish (earning $526.90 in the process) after starting 16th.

Andretti in a sprint car at Reading, Pennsylvania, early 1960s.

The following season, 1965, Andretti took his first Indy Car victory at the Hoosier Grand Prix. The race was just a stepping stone to a spectacular year, as Andretti would finish third in the Indianapolis 500 (earning Rookie of the Year honors in the process) as well as take his first Indy Car series championship.

By 1967, Andretti had branched out to compete in series as diversified as NASCAR and sports car endurance racing, in addition to Indy Car. His skill at both car control and chassis setup were soon proven by victories in the 1967 Daytona 500 and the 12 Hours of Sebring. Though Andretti continued to qualify well at the Indianapolis 500, victory eluded him, as did the opportunity to drive in Formula One.

That changed in 1968, when Andretti put a Lotus 49 on the pole at Watkins Glen, New York, in his very first Formula One start. A clutch issue ended Andretti’s race early, and the American driver would only compete sporadically in F1 until the 1975 season (despite winning the 1971 South African Grand Prix for Scuderia Ferrari). His breakout season in Formula One came in 1977; driving for John Player Team Lotus, Andretti took four wins. Though he suffered DNFs in seven of 17 races, he finished third in points, then returned to the John Player Team Lotus squad in 1978 to earn the Formula One World Championship (making him just the second American, after Phil Hill, to do so). His victory was bittersweet, however, as teammate and friend Ronnie Peterson died of complications from injuries sustained in an opening lap crash at the Italian Grand Prix, the very race that had given Andretti his championship title.

Though Andretti would race full time in Formula One though the 1981 season (and as a substitute driver in 1982), he never again enjoyed the same level of success as he had in the 1977-1978 seasons. In 1982, he returned to American open wheel racing on a full-time basis, where he continued to rack up wins, podium finishes and a single championship (in 1984) until his retirement from Indy Car in 1994.

Andretti and Ronnie Peterson, 1978.

A second win at the Indianapolis 500 wasn’t the only victory to elude Andretti, as his best finish at the 24 Hours of LeMans to this point was a third overall and third in class, driving a Porsche 956 with his son Michael and Philippe Alliot in 1983. In 1995, Andretti returned to Le Mans and scored a class win in a Courage C34 with co-drivers Bob Wollek and Eric Helary. Andretti tried again for the overall win at Le Mans in 1996, 1997 and 2000, but managed no better than third in class.

Despite the disappointments, Andretti “drove the careers of three men,” according to his official biography page. In addition to earning the title of “Driver of the Year” in three successive decades (the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s), Andretti was named “Driver of the Quarter Century” in the 1990s. Perhaps the ultimate honor (and to some, the ultimate controversy) came when the Associated Press picked both Andretti and A.J. Foyt as the “AP Driver of the Century” in 1999. Andretti and Foyt tied for top honors, beating out such names as Juan Manuel Fangio, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Ayrton Senna and Dan Gurney.

Accepting the Driver of the Quarter Century award, with Carl Haas and Paul Newman.

Awards aside, it would be difficult to name a driver who’s had a more successful career across as diverse a range of motorsports than Mario Andretti. Though his active years are now in his rear-view mirror, Andretti still serves as an ambassador to motorsports, and remains perhaps the most recognized name (and face) of American racing.

There’s no shortage of pantheons devoted to auto racing. That’s no bad happenstance, but until now, a void has existed in the lack of one for the United States Auto Club, the nation’s premier sanctioning body for open-cockpit racing since it succeeded the AAA in 1956, and whose races long included the Indianapolis 500.

USAC has now established its own Hall of Fame, and named its first eight members, not all of whom are drivers. Some were officials or business types who helped the young organization find its footing once AAA bailed out of racing following the bloody season of 1955. First on the list, alphabetically and otherwise, is promoter J.C. Agajanian of Los Angeles, an Armenian immigrant who entered the trash-collection business despite the inability to speak a word of English. He grew to be a millionaire patron of racing, operated the fabled Ascot Park, and won the 500 twice as a car owner (1952 and 1963). Agajanian, who died in 1984, was the first promoter to put on 250 USAC races. His son, Cary, was an associate sponsor of last year’s 500 winner driven by the late Dan Wheldon.

The next inductee is Mario Andretti, with three USAC national driving crowns, an Indianapolis win, and the distinction of being the last American to win in Formula 1, race or championship. Following is Tom Binford, who served 12 years as USAC president plus as Indianapolis 500 chief steward, but was also a huge civic figure in his own city. A major Indianapolis thoroughfare, Binford Boulevard, was named in his honor after he died in 1999.

The brawny Arizonan, Jimmy Bryan, won the first two USAC national titles, along with a AAA crown and the 1958 Indianapolis 500 before dying at Langhorne, Pennsylvania, in 1960. Duane Carter, who died in 1993, was a top-tier driver who served as USAC’s first competition director before he returned to driving. A.J. Foyt, the most obvious inductee, holds 154 wins in USAC, the most in history, among them four Indy titles. Tony Hulman, the Terre Haute business magnate who died in 1977, is credited with reviving the Indianapolis Motor Speedway after World War II and remaking it into a colossal sports amphitheater. The last initial inductee by USAC’s committee is Roger McCluskey, who won National, Stock Car and Sprint car titles before serving as competition director. He died in 1993.

Fans will also have the choice to vote on four inductees of their own choosing. To do so, visit the USAC Hall of Fame page on Facebook. The induction ceremony will take place May 20 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Does this guy look familiar? It’s none other than Mario Andretti, in a coach-bodied Modified that he raced in 1962 for Frank J. Tanzosh. The photo, especially the Acme Markets sign in the background, indicates that this image was snapped in the pit area of the half-mile dirt oval, Nazareth Raceway, in Mario’s adopted Pennsylvania hometown. This is the car in which Mario became a true professional, i.e. driving for somebody else. The Tanzoshes, father Frank and son Billy, fielded very potent Modifieds at Nazareth for years, Billy winning two track titles. I found this photo, however, in a rare racing book, “The Hard Clay in Orange County,” published in 1969 to mark 50 years of motorsport at Orange County Fair Speedway in Middletown, New York, where the Tanzoshes also raced. The hook was that in 1962, Mario was in the field when the ARDC Midgets ran Middletown. The year the book was published, Mario won the Indianapolis 500. Nine years later, he was world champion of Formula 1, for Lotus. What a journey. Middletown, as an auto racing venue, turned 90 this summer. You can hear more about Middletown by listening to the latest episode of Hemmings Collector Car Radio.

Here’s a I sight that I absolutely guarantee you’ll never seen anyplace other than Hershey, a car that actually raced at the Indianapolis 500, on one of the world’s fastest, most intimidating race courses, trundling around the outside of a high school football field. If you’ve never had the pleasure (and you should), the AACA National includes a live-fire exercise for restored racing cars around Hershey Stadium on Friday mornings, when the weather cooperates. This, according to the esteemed Indianapolis Motor Speedway historian, Donald Davidson, isÂ a 1967 Laycock Mongoose-Ford that raced both then and in 1968 as theÂ Vel’s-Parnelli Jones Special. In 1967, it was qualified and initially driven in the race by longtime A.J. Foyt sideman George “Ziggy” Snider, until rain interrupted the 500. Lloyd Ruby subbed for Snider when the 1967 race resumed the following day, but was knocked out on the 99th lap after tangling with stock car hero Lee Roy Yarbrough. Then Mongoose-FordÂ later finished 31st in the 1968 race, driven again byÂ Snider. It DNF’ed after nine laps when its four-cam Ford V-8 sprung an oil leak, but Snider still finished ahead of two future Formula 1 world champions, the late Jochen Rindt and the luck-deprived Mario Andretti. Fully restored, this car’s now owned by Robert B. McConnell of Urbana, Ohio, part of his spectacular Indy car collection, and still unaccustomed to such Gasoline Alley speeds. BTW, Hershey Stadium’s fifth-mile oval is a historic Midget venue; Doc Shanebrook won the first such race there in 1939.

A couple of weeks after breaking his foot racing a Husqvarna dirt bike at the 1970 Lake Elsinore GP, Steve McQueen did what any self-respecting movie star-cum-amateur motorsport star would do: He teamed up with Peter Revson and nearly beat out Mario Andretti and Team Ferrari for the overall win at the 1970 Sebring 12-Hours.

The race has become the stuff of legend as McQueen, with his foot in a cast, and Formula One star Revson outgunned a field of factory teams with McQueen’s Porsche 908. With 25 laps to go, they were actually leading the race but couldn’t hold off Andretti’s second-to-last-lap charge in a 5-liter Ferrari 512S.

McQueen’s 908 Porsche was then raced at Le Mans later that year, with a pair of cameras on board filming footage for his 1971 gearhead classic, Le Mans.

If any or all of the above seriously interests you, then you’ll also be interested in learning that Bonhams & Butterfields will be offering McQueen’s legendary 908 at its sale August 15 at Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley, California, during the Monterey Peninsula Car Week, which includes the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Laguna Seca.

The pre-auction estimate for the car is currently between $1.5 and $2 million, so don’t forget your checkbook.

(This post originally appeared in the May 29, 2008, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)